i will bring you happy flowers from the mountain & baskets of kisses
by appleschan
Summary: a boy and a ghost.
1. Chapter 1

au.

i will bring you happy flowers from the mountain & rustic baskets of kisses

by appleschan

* * *

Ichigo has gone out of his car to _pull_ flowers along the road. He never buys. He picks them out of huddles of growing weeds and flowers shrubs and wild trees lining a cracked pavement en route to the remotest, _remotest_ house in the outskirts of Karakura. He pulls the bluebells and some early-blooming hazels.

He lingers on that sidewalk stretch while haphazardly rearranging the blues and the yellows and then tying the stems with a string to make a decent offering. But he frowns at his own sloppy handiwork.

She was some sort of a noble clan princess from three centuries ago. The thought weighs heavily, surely that in itself warranted knowledge in _ikebana_ design principles.

So he walks around and picks up the prettiest-looking _dead_ and coarse twigs he could find and sticks them onto his makeshift bouquet beside the bright, blooming flowers - life and death or the cycle of life, she'd like the symbolism or some shit like that.

Now ready, Ichigo walks back to his car and drives a bit faster.

He regularly goes out on official business trip - as official and as business as it gets. Ichigo is a manga writer - not an illustrator, somebody does that for him. His friend, Chad, who is also part of Japanese-Mexican band, does that for him. Ichigo is only doing the research and writes the story. Another friend, Ishida Uryuu, who is too stuck-up for a medical resident, agrees to be the editor - only because he said his supremely high intelligence would allow him to see plotholes, "and there are astoundingly many," he said too many times. Ishida would always end his smug tirade with his mandatory reminder, "it's charity work, Kurosaki, be grateful I'm lending you my time," which earns a "yeah great, fuck you, too" from Ichigo.

More specifically, Ichigo writes in the action and feudal history genre and readers dig their work. Acclaimed and all, serialized, consistently ranked high with a large following, and nearing completion.

Chad makes a good work of designing characters and Ishida suggests strong and clashing characterizations and good on vital subplots, and Ichigo creates the story, themes, characters, hides the lyrical symbols, and composes the poetry.

He's a novelist, too, but he's far from being finished, and very often, he gets rid of unruly ghosts by threatening them - which comes really handy when needs to put a stop to ghosts fooling around in his younger sisters' apartment.

There's a peculiar fourth member in their team, and she's a ghost who once lived in the Feudal Era.

She's functions as a ghost consultant to him, confirming his researches on political events and figures. She was a clan princess who once sat in her family council to play surrogate to her brother during wartime, a civil uprising hundreds of years ago. She was _badass_ , a legitimate one. She even showed him where her katana was.

Only that: she never revealed her name to him.

But Ichigo had a glimpse of her clan's insignia - camelia and snowdrop flowers, and he already came across it several times but did not research further to respect her wish. He lets her be.

Ichigo visits her twice a month to consult with her, and two more times to do practically nothing but hang out - also in the same month. He enjoys it.

So today, Ichigo comes devoid of his work materials and notebooks and inflammatory editor's notes from Ishida and gushing fan mails he reads to her when he visits (not Ishida's notes). Ichigo comes to spend time with her.

The ghost resides in the remotest, _remotest_ old house from the city, on a swath of land clearing surrounded by thick greeneries. She resides near - between - the foot of a mountain and the seashore.

Ichigo reaches the end of the cracked and bumpy road - nobody goes this way, really, except for random security checks, so there is no need to continually conduct road yearly. He turns the engine off, draws his car keys and gets out of his modest black car.

Ichigo brings his makeshift _ikebana_ offering and leather satchel bag with him, he enters the forest and hikes.

Above him, the sky reflects the blueness of summertime - even if it is not - and the clouds are wispy white and they stretch wide. To his left, between the tree gaps, he could see the ocean, an expanse of sparkling blue-green, and the trees around him - deeply green and dark brown. There are many bright little flower shrubs. It's a good day - splashed in spring colors. Ichigo keeps on walking.

Technically, he is trespassing: this area is protected and preserved by the government. The house where she resides is well over 500 years - she told him. It was not, however, the seat of her clan's power centuries ago. It did not even belonged to her family, she said.

But spirits have ties, he believes, they return to those important to them, people or objects.

He always wondered what appeal the place held for her; why she is constantly returning to this place, or better yet, why won't she simply cross over if such a thing is possible.

Ichigo knows his way all too well. He knows how the sunshine dapples the forest floor on different times during the day, and he avoids uneven, moss-covered rocks and fallen tree trunks very well. Many times, he and the ghost take would walks outside - in her case, she _floats_ , but she likes to mimic walking.

Soon, Ichigo reaches a clearing and emerges from the back of her place. Like any 500-year old structure, the house is huge and sprawling and dilapidated, it's _fusuma_ cutaway and the wooden columns blackish, but it maintained most of its form still - from the renovation they did when they moved - she said, and that's how Ichigo knew she once lived here. There is, of course, no sign of human inhabitation. Ichigo rounds on a corner, walking until he passes an old well and rocks and a destroyed concrete wall.

The sun is mildly warm on his back and he feels the cool wind pass him as he makes his way to the front.

Ichigo finds her sitting on the _engawa_ of the front house. Dilapidation and _oldness_ and _time_ behind her.

He stops walking and clears his throat, "yo, how's death?" he tells the white, misty form of a woman sitting so poised on the wooden flooring outside the house in greetings.

" _How is...failing at life, then_?" The ghost answers him, her voice is barely above a murmur, like wind chimes only quiet and matured, and Ichigo hears a silent laughter there. It is hello.

Sometimes, Ichigo wonders if he hears her on his head, or this is just one of those things science needs to account for.

Nevertheless, Ichigo pauses, his face is slowly breaking into a smirk, pleased at her adaptation to modernities, "I'm not failing..." he mutters, stepping forward. He is holding his flower offering on one hand.

The ghost stands and _walks_ towards him slowly, the hem of her long _kosode_ drags behind her (or floats) as with her front-tied long _obi_ sash. Even from being of the dead, there is nothing threatening or dreadful about her presence.

The ghost is undeterred by the sunlight, and whose facial features are gleaming, recognizable and all too white and translucent, yet is strangely _very_ human, if not, familiar.

At an arm's distance, she bows - like always. And him, feeling uncultured and has never been really mindful of his actions and remembering how old she is - would have been, respectfully returns her bow albeit lower.

The ghost died a little less than four hundred years ago, but she keeps to her graceful noble roots - from her clothes and mannerisms.

When greetings are properly exchanged. He feels grouchy and uncouth in comparison - wearing black denims and a plain shirt, and has bright orange hair. He's grown in the city, loud and always in a hurry and modern. This ghost, certainly, is the antithesis to that.

Her long, unbound hair would have been black, he remembers thinking. She barely reaches his shoulders.

"I, uhh...here," Ichigo offers her his little bouquet. The ghost looks up to him, confused, a stubborn bang hangs between her eyes - which somehow retained a purplish streak.

"Oh, right sorry," Ichigo says hurriedly, and takes back his offer, as if the ghost can hold something, "I'll just put it on there somewhere, you okay with that?" He points to the engawa.

At her nod, he covers the distance to the delicate wooden flooring and places there the red string-bounded bluebells and the hazels and twigs.

"Do you need to ask me something?" Comes her voice.

"Do I need to ' _ask you something_ ' to visit you?" Ichigo returns, his face cracking a playful smirk.

* * *

2-part. im disappointed. had to remove 1 word from the title by p. neruda.


	2. Chapter 2

i have a feeling i came across u before, ririri, are u frm tumblr? and thanks for liking rent as well. hiei, thank u, and lol at black magic, yesmin - but can't do

i will bring you happy flowers from the mountain & rustic baskets of kisses

by appleschan

* * *

There are only moss-covered rocks and streaks of golden sunlight between them -

Rukia the ghost lifts her hand, observing the unfractured sunrays passing on her palm. If only - if only - she could recall how spring is like, how mornings tucked in bed are like, how sunrays on her back feel like, then perhaps it would make her wait easier, there would be fond experiences to revisit.

But she opens and closes her palm: the sunrays remain unbending and imperceptible to her - everything exists alongside but not _with_ her. Still, Rukia does not come to resent the loss of these little perceptions, only mourn, because such losses are necessary - costs.

Though life has been kind to her, allowing her to stay instead of crossing to wait, and time dealt kindness to her equally, allowing her to retain semblances of her former existence - all things have a cost.

Rukia is not of the living, life took away her freedom to wander but it tethered her to the place she calls home the most - for that she is grateful. Time decides her unnaturally long stay across several lifetimes - more than 300 years - must have something in return: she is subject to withering, too. Decades to centuries, she remembers less of what spring is like or what waking up is like, patches of her memories blurred like dusty mirrors - the passing of time caused her blindness more than any sun did, perhaps there is end to her. If such is so, she thinks, then it could be that time does not discriminate, that all cycles, all things may be heading to an eventual end after all. These are the costs of her waiting.

But until then, Rukia is content to still remember her name, have the strongest of memories to cling to and have her previous home to watch over.

Rukia learned while she was still alive - and eventually saw when she died - that the cycle of life, afterlife and rebirth is never so simple. Rukia knows her old myths, Izanagi and Izanami and their creation; how Tsukuyomi ruled the moon and night; then there's Uzume of dawn who danced; and having been married once during her lifetime, Rukia is well-versed about fate and meetings, and having lost her husband, she knows about a lunar god who ties strings that never break.

( _their_ string has not been broken, only it stretched so far until it disappeared - Rukia asked to stay, to be subjected to a terribly long wait across lifetimes - the costs notwithstanding)

After all the myths, Rukia has come to believe that souls have ties - she believes in it as if there's a level of truth in it comparable to other worldly absolutes like death and sickness and justice: regardless of various lifetimes, souls are always drawn to those they are tied with; they will always find their way.

There are only moss-covered rocks and streaks of golden sunlight between them -

Rukia's consistent visitor, a tall, bright-haired man who identifies himself as a writer in this age has entered her periphery. She looks up. He has emerged from the back of her home, and he carries string-tied bluebells and twigs on his hand - death and life. An understable offering for a greeting. Rukia smiles.

The man smiles, too - or smirks, really, there isn't much difference. But he is welcome. There's a little exchange - he says a quip, she answers accordingly, then she stands to bow to him, to quietly thank him for taking the time to visit her regularly, he does to.

She watches him go and place the bluebells on her home's engawa.

Rukia has not seen much people come her way, so there's none much to compare him with. The man always dresses peculiarly with less fabric but heavier in color. He told her there is a word for it - the way he clothes himself, _modern_. It's modern, he said, boat shoes and clothes like shirts and fitted pants replaced the hakama and gi, tabi and geta of the past three hundred years.

Rukia always preferred the clothes of her time for their simplicity and functionality, the man disagreed. Simpler, he added, my time's more comfortable as in practical - he's stubborn. When the subject came up first, she politely disagreed then told him that she thought they are dull - modern is dull, in which the man snorted and answered in a somewhat annoyed but relatively good humor, laughing, he said, "we can't be as old and grand as you all the time, ya know." This was the first time she heard him laugh, saw his first grin, too, and this was how they addressed the first, glaring trivial matter that showed the separation of the time she lived and the time he's living.

So Rukia withholds from commenting on his clothes - which are dark - to avert any argument, instead she settles on:

"Do you need to ask me something?"

On times he asks, there are papers he writes on - possibly modern, too - papers with characters admirably handwritten (" _they are not handwritten, typed, you know, on a computer - wait, you don't know what a computer is, do you? So it's uh, ahh, machine…a machine is..."_ ). He is inquisitive, deeply concerned, asking about her time, about the people she lived with, and she tries to remember for him, recognizing how important it seems to be for him.

The times he spends idly with her are usually slow and uneventful marked with easy conversations and a different kind of mellowness: he naps on her home's engawa when the day is too hot, she lets him inside when it's raining and apologizes for the leaking roof while she stays outside, sitting on her usual spot, but on days when the weather is calm, they walk around and she tells him the old trees know the weight of history and the ocean is open to secrets - these are the better days.

\- Rukia hopes for the better day.

"Do I need to ' _ask you something_ ' to visit you?" The man tells her, grinning.

 _Ahh_ , so it's an idle day, then. "No, you do not," assures Rukia, amused and inexplicably looking forward to the day.

There is something-something about, it's not the color of his hair - outrageous orange - or the sharp grin he has, but Rukia observes - as one who hasn't interacted with a human for too long and someone who can't recall how spring or summer is like - he could be the closest thing to a sunray right now.

* * *

her side. should have this added sooner. i hate me. now 3-part.

outloux, cavisce, shirayuki992, everild, manusxmachina, vine, thousandbirds, asian-simbae, funnyeasyme - thank u all, really. i'll compose a proper collective reply when i'm awake (guys from my asia timezone know i usually post around midnight) but _do_ know that i have a lot of influences and i favor writing simplicity.

im sorry vine, lilith is after - really, and this, happy flowers, is an old story, part 3 of something i'm working on since 2009 - but that's a secret, pls pretend i didn't say anything.


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